Tag: creating

Well, obviously the answer is none, because mechanics are commonly called “artists”, chefs are called “artists” and the other day, I think it was a politician that a journalist noted is really an “artist” of politics. Anything can be called art until you are the one doing it – then nothing you do can be considered art.

And, never assume that any art or design at all needs to be created for the term “artist” to be bestowed upon someone or something – as long as they are not actually creating art.

It is also, neither the amount of work done, the training to be able to do it well, the efforts for some number of years to market your art and designs, nor the number of years doing it in aggregate.

But it is also not the value nor the quality of the artworks or design either, because right now – it is trendy to have a style that is severely more amateurish than ever before and if you are not producing that – then you are still not “an artist” or a “designer”.

At one time, having a body of work that you have created in art and design was enough to be a calling card that established proficiency and merit at least in claiming the term, artist or designer.

But, now that the internet is so encompassing and the merits of everything so fleeting for the next new thing, that body of work isn’t even required and in fact, may be more of a reason for business backers to not want to invest. It defines nothing of merit that says the skills are there and the works have been done.

Everything is simply about marketing and what the market wants at the moment and whether any of the things you’ve created or designed can fit the trends of today and next week. But, what if you are an American artist and designer with a body of work that proves it to be the case, and have been investing years of study and sacrifice and effort into creating those skills, artworks and designs? Then what?

It might mean something – and there might be a market for it – that is all it means. You still can’t call yourself an artist or a designer unless you are really doing something that has absolutely no relationship to art or the product of art or design – like baking, or being a heating and air conditioning repair person, or a pilot, or a mathematician or only God knows what – or a gardener, or a landscaper (but not a landscape designer, they can’t be called a “designer” in a social context.) It has been bizarre like that for years.

And, people will tell you – just don’t give up, your work is really, really good. And, they’ll say, you just need to sell it and for more people to know about it, but nobody wants to be bothered with seeing it, the excitement of creating it isn’t very exciting to the people who might want to own it and they don’t want to be bothered watching it be created either – especially since it isn’t a funny cat video.

Maybe I just need to do a cat video.

No, I’ve made some cat videos and they were not all that entertaining. Creating art could be more entertaining than the videos I’ve made of it, but it is hard to even want to do that when I already have thousands of artworks I’ve created and designs I’ve made over years and years of creating this body of work – and can’t even realistically call myself an artist because I totally suck at marketing.

And now, people want things that are vastly different with lots of white space, done by somebody in their twenties, not necessarily time consuming or intensely skilled products from it and a style that happens to be trendy at the moment. How do I even tell people about the art I have done or that I could do when there is simply no real way to show it to them or tell them about it where they want to see it and know about it?

I’m sharing this with you to try and help myself think about all of it in more expansive terms rather than as closed off as I feel right now about my work and its opportunities to find the right place in the markets and in the world.

I like it when people buy my work and own it as the special piece in their home or office or vacation house. I like that. If I understood better how to share it with them online and in person – would that be enough for people who might want it and appreciate my art and designs to see them?

One of my little art cards with an ocean painting on it, called Baby Crickets – collectible and each one is a hand painted original work of art. Some of them have been used as designs on my Zazzle store at CricketDiane and Cricket House Studios Art and Design.

cricketdiane, 05-11-2018

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About CricketDiane –

I’ve been creating nearly every day since I was a kid and that is over 50 years. I’ve created in numerous ways in a range that moves from art to problem-solving to inventing, creating music, sculpting and painting to writing and doing various computer / online based projects.

“It is better to make the effort to move forward and release the flow of ideas to work with them and do things creatively, create things and invent and write and make – I definitely know that by experience.” – cricketdiane, 2018

It is handy to have other ways to view the same thing that can inspire new ways to use it, new ideas from it, and new viewpoints about it. Whether for brainstorming or creating, these five ways to look at something differently help to approach the same thing from different avenues of thinking.

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Backwards – from where you want it to be back to now.

Deconstructed – all the elements if they weren’t stuck together.

Upside-down – if it were the exact opposite of what it is now.

Inside-out – what would it be if its inside parts were on the outside.

Every so often, it is obvious that the page in front of us, the canvas or the computer screen awaiting words, is blank and speaks blankly back to us without any flow at all. It is called, writers’ block or creativity block or artists’ block or inventors’ block. You get the idea – it is where nothing happens creatively and writing or creating if forced, simply isn’t even worth having made the effort – because it isn’t working.

CricketDiane 2018 Photography NYC Doors to express what writers block and creative block is like for this article about unleashing creativity.

So, rather than have that creative block last on and on, here are seven techniques that can help end it and re-awaken the flow of creativity, innovating, inventing, making, writing and creating –

dirty the page

Well, it doesn’t happen as badly with a blank page that gets nearly anything painted on it or written on it. This is the old, start somewhere adage and the flow will start up again. So, write something down, put the date, signature the top of the page or bottom of the canvas, use the weather or sky as an excuse to start putting in something until the rest starts to flow.

Dirty the page or dirty the canvas, dirty the work area with some possible materials then shove them out of the way to the side and start something with a few pieces to play with how they fit together and what those pieces might do.

My favorite for writing is – It was a dark and stormy night, written on the page. Then it can be about anything but there is somewhere already something on the page or computer screen, so I might as well write something to go with it – usually about something else and then I take the dark and stormy night part out in editing.

For art and drawing, get a stack of paper or small canvases or aceo sized cards and start putting some paint on them. Unremarkable or valuable – doesn’t matter, stick some paint on it. My favorite is to start with the sky or do paint or draw a rose to see if I can do it better than last time until the creative ideas start flowing naturally again. It works.

play in the paint – play with the words

Let go of what other people think and whether it will sell or what might be salable (sell-able) or marketable and simply play with it awhile.

Dripping paint on a surface is one way of starting to play in the paint and it is easy to direct once there is something to work with to move around. But, it doesn’t have to be worth a damn or something worth anything to someone else.

Occasionally, it is more valuable to experience the joy of playing in the paint again, playing with the act of inventing and making again, playing with the words to enjoy the art of writing again. Maybe it is always important to do that and to say this is renewing, is an understatement, especially once marketing and sales become part of it all.

let the emotions fly

Give voice and artistic expression to the anger, frustration, disappointment, sadness, boredom, grief, sorrow, love, hate, hope, joy, pettiness, annoyance – whatever it may be and put them into a written dialogue, or into the paint of the painting, or into the music as you create it (try to record it by the way), or into the words for a song. Make comedy material with the feelings, sculpt them into the clay or invent them into something that expresses it.

Letting the emotions fly into these creative formats is done without judgment or hindrance and the most amazing things are created with those emotions. Do another painting or another writing until it is done, or half-way or two-thirds – it doesn’t matter. Letting the emotions go into the work is what helps unblock writers’ block and artists’ block.

Just keep making another painting or music or invention or writing until the emotions are gone or have changed, become relieved or the feeling of satisfaction comes that makes it obvious that the feelings and emotions have been fully expressed.

what could be done with it – if

Start with a flower or something, (nearly anything), and what could be done with a flower or any other basic everyday item or group of items. This is the magic question, IF. If the flower were in a field of flowers, if it were a painting of a still life, if it was a flower in someone’s hand, if the wind has blown the flower’s petals off except for one, etc.

IF – is powerful tool to awaken the arsenal of possibilities, creativity and the flow of creating. So, start with something and write or paint or draw quick sketches of what could be done with that flower or that thing or those things. Whatever the theme, the mind can dance in and out of the possibilities without anything but playfulness about it, IF it is allowed to do so and called upon. That is what this does.

There is no way to see how this works except to try it. For me, when I was writing this, I started with a flower because I like flowers. There are a lot of them in my art. So, I wrote something to put here as an example, The flower stands tall in the soft nestled grasses sparkling with the bright drops from the summer rain. But, I can also see that flower in a bright kitchen window behind the sink where someone, probably me – is washing dishes and humming a bit of a song. Well, those could be leads to other places for writing – but not required.

It is only important to write down, paint, draw or speak into some video or recording of some kind for this to yield a flow where it had been blocked before. The same is true of inventing and making – start with a flower or something. What could it be made from? What if it’s like this? What if an entire gizmo were to be shaped like a flower to catch the sun or to catch rain from the roof to dispense it later across the yard? or whatever the theme or item or group of things you’ve chosen. It doesn’t have to be a flower.

what could be the story – idea cards

One handy thing to use for going around writers’ block and creative block are story idea cards that you can make yourself and some are available every so often in the marketplace for writers or designers or kids. These are used by famous authors according to some books about writing. I don’t know which ones used them but I’ve used them and they are the handiest tool to change writers block or artistic block into a flowing river of story avenues and worthwhile ideas while awakening the excitement of pursuing them.

Idea story cards are 3 x 5 cards or slips of paper, post-it notes or pieces of business card sized cardstock with ideas written on them that generate elements of possibilities for a story, a piece of art, a song, a piece of music, a craft piece, a sculpture or an invention. They can have problems to solve for the world or scenes and characters, riffs for a song or dynamic action sequences.

Using the idea story cards is easy, making them is fun and they offer questions as well as ideas like – who planted the flower, what is the scene around it, what part could it play in the story, does someone interact with the flower and use it, is it part of a bigger story about the garden where the flower is planted?- as in the flower example I used above.

You can make the scenes, the ideas on the story cards in different ways depending on the kinds of writing you do or the kind of inventing and innovating you want to do. These are a great way to end writers’ block, creative block and artistic / inventors’ block. The idea story cards give a place to start and a way to move the pieces of a story or invention around to play with it and that’s its whole purpose to ending writers’ block.

cricketdiane, 03-05-2018

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About CricketDiane –

I’ve been creating nearly every day since I was a kid and that is over 50 years. I’ve created in numerous ways in a range that moves from art to problem-solving to inventing, creating music, sculpting and painting to writing and doing various computer / online based projects.

I’ve created and created and created, been blocked creatively on occasion and come through it to create and create and create again. I’d say that makes me an expert in this – and some of these techniques for ending creative block and writers’ block will likely work better for you than others, but what I can say about it is this – getting creativity to flow unhindered is well worth the effort.

Writers’ block and creativity being blocked, hurts and makes everything else harder too. It is better to make the effort to move forward and release the flow of ideas to work with them and do things creatively, create things and invent and write and make – I definitely know that by experience.

Creativity Makes Everything Better – Shown: One of my drawings of a still life with a wine glass, wine bottle and grapes being done in pastels at ArtLab / Snug Harbor, Staten Island, NY 2017

The Advantages of Creativity –

Increased Flexibility –

Creativity increases flexibility in thinking, goal setting, planning and sense of the possibilities.

Innovative Approaches –

Creativity opens the ways of considering innovative approaches, problem-solving and in applications of possibilities and solutions.

Faster Ability to Respond –

Creativity makes a faster ability to respond to situations, analyze possibilities and make good judgments to use in responding to these situations.

Improves Memory –

Because creativity calls upon remembered experiences, tried solutions, people’s suggestions and things seen or read about, that might help in the current creative effort, project or goals, creativity enhances and improves memory and recall.

Improves Communication Skills –

As creativity seeks to be an expression of what is imagined or considered as possibilities, in nailing down the problem needing to be solved and in using communications to convey the possibilities of what is created, the skills of communicating are improving each time through each of these and other aspects of creativity.

More Relaxed and Confident –

Creativity increases the positive feelings of capability and options thereby relieving some degree of stress and giving a more relaxed and confident internal landscape the more it is used and exercised, whether fully successfully or not. The capacity to create as an action that is possible does this and means that it improves self-esteem and confidence allowing a person to operate in a more relaxed, at ease manner while feeling more comfortable in their own skin, so to speak.

More Capable in General –

Since creativity expands thinking, capabilities, memory, applied reasoning and brings together various skills operationally, it serves to make the person doing it, more capable in general. Creativity works out the intellect, the emotions, the psyche, the knowledge and skills of the person, the memories and the expansiveness of possibilities in such a way, that greater capabilities emerge each time it is used.

Better Able to Create Solutions When, and As Needed –

Because creativity is being utilized during times that are not critical in nature, the basic use of creativity for problem-solving when it is much needed is ready at hand as an option to use in any situation, and especially when needed in critical situations as they are occurring or in the immediacy of them. Creativity becomes another skill set that is available to use seamlessly, easily and with more viable results, the more it is done.

Conclusion –

The creativity inherent in the human species has been the game changer that has allowed us to adapt, flex, build, change, grow, problem–solve and survive.

With creativity, life is rich and varied, productive and satisfying in wild, beautiful ways. Without it, life is only whatever is given without the capacity to change any of it.

Creativity nourishes the mind and the spirit while enhancing the feeling that efforts are being substantially made toward something. It is a healthy and powerful aspect of being human as it draws together applied knowledge, know-how and intangible lines of what might be possible into a full-fledged real form that can be used to problem-solve, innovate, invent and make the world and everyday life, a much better place.

cricketdiane, 03-01-2018

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About CricketDiane –

I’ve been creating nearly every day since I was a kid and that is over 50 years. I’ve created in numerous ways in a range that moves from art to problem-solving to inventing, creating music, sculpting and painting to writing and doing various computer / online based projects.

“It is better to make the effort to move forward and release the flow of ideas to work with them and do things creatively, create things and invent and write and make – I definitely know that by experience.” – cricketdiane, 2018

Please like us and share on facebook, youtube, twitter and your blog! And, donate if you can. Thanks so much!

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The Scared Donkey Mine Money Game Project –

We are going to make a board game into a video game. You want to come along and watch us do it?

Well, put on your “Get Along” face and donate today for our Scared Donkey Mine Money Game to become the world’s best number one new kind of exciting game and gaming play. It is a board game now by an inventor who is a grandma like our spokesman. You’ll love her. You’ll hate her.

But with your money, she will put this board game into a video game that you will get to see happening as it happens with updates, secret invites to streaming and video content of team and project development sessions, be the earliest beta version testers and help grandma get the kinks out to make this the smoothest, most seamless running game being done today (with hyperdrive) – no, not really hyperdrive.

Let’s Put Together A Seamless, Amazing Video Gaming Experience For This Game –

We’re up against the greatest teams in gaming development who are already in place making the games we will be standing next to in the marketplace.

They’ve got their geekdoms all set up so we are gonna need your help.

Donations give us the money to pay for code to be written and to hire our own team of people who will take this board game and make it come alive.

Explore the various mines with their valuables in a walk-through style gaming play –

With worlds of the Scared Donkey Mine and other mines you can explore, trade, change and build on its potentials to be mined of valuables in the best way possible. It’s fun!

Find the secret vein of riches in the mines that no one ever knew about and find the costs and ways to mine it before the other players and without King Pindick and his conniving buddies finding out.

You need to play this game at least once, but every time it is played, it is different in what combinations of actions will work as the valuables change value and the mines offer different yields – and learn more about how money works in the real world and about mining your own resources than you would ever be able to figure out some other way.

Don’t Look Now But King Pindick Thinks He Can Mine His Mines Without Your Help –

(he is in for a shock because it turns out he is wrong about that)-

Join us in the worlds of the Scared Donkey Mine Money Game. Follow our story as King Pindick discovers that his vast resources cannot help him unless he gets others to find, harvest (mine), and profit also from the mines.

Just take a moment to help Granny D assess the mining operations that No Help Hannah and No Help Harvey are using for King Pindick’s service while robbing him at every turn.

Take on the challenge of finding and mining in the most power-giving and profitable ways possible from your choice of mines, operations and markets for their valuables based on making the best possible set of factors and deals with the King and his cohorts.

Find yourself in the worlds of the mines and assess their potential riches, see the mine operations to decide on how to invest in making better and more efficient returns of their potential money-making.

Be The Wheeler Dealer You Know Yourself To Be And Try Out What You Think Works –

Make the trade deals on the trading markets to get better returning mine operations or more profitable mining equipment or mines with larger payloads of valuable resources, that you must discover by exploring and comparing their riches in the changing markets values for them.

Fight off King Pindick’s conniving cousins and his current mine operators, No Help Hannah and No Help Harvey as they try to sneak in and take the mine and its proceeds from you and other players. Make deals and alliances among the other mine owners to stop them or divert their interests to something else and some other group of resources. It can be very tricky and take a bit of sneaking and conniving back on them, since they are pretty slick but very lazy and greedy as they try and get King Pindick’s permission to take the mines away from you and other players.

Play with others or play alone, but remember – in this game, strategy wins.

The Scared Donkey Mine Money Game is a board game created over twenty-five years ago by CricketDiane. You can view more of her art, designs, blogs and things by googling cricketdiane as one word.

It takes anywhere from $20 million dollars to develop a top tier video game to a low of $200K if some of the programming can be done by the game’s founders. (add link to those facts.)

Our goal is to raise $3 million dollars for developing this video game through online crowdfunding and other sources to get the game made and into the market.

This campaign is raising funds to take the Scared Donkey Mine Money Game from a board game and make it into a video / online game with a cost of doing that of two years and very likely, about $3 million dollars. The GoFundMe campaign you see here is part of that fundraising effort to develop the video game.

Join us by donating today and let’s help Granny D up her game into the 21st century!

What’s Blocking Corporate Creativity?

Creative ideas don’t have metrics. They haven’t been around for a while. You might not know anybody that’s been using them. What ends up happening is, you get a creative idea, it has weird metrics, you don’t really know much about it, and it doesn’t allow a decision-maker to make a correct decision. They don’t have the data.

Instead, a way to think about creativity might be better served by not thinking like a decision-maker but like an inventor figuring out and getting curious about the answer.

From a corporate perspective, creative ideas and creativity are necessary but often, elusive despite the opportunities inherent in organizations for creativity to flourish and being much needed. This article explores it very well. There is a podcast about creativity too, from Wharton.

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Creativity flourishes when we do more of it. I gave the US Customs House in New York City, a more expressive creative look to its stodgy, stuck in the 18th century facade. – CricketDiane 2018

Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Seth Godin on the role of creativity in business

from Maya Angelou. As she put it, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

This concept of creativity being a resource that grows with each use and diminishes in strength when left tucked away in silence, runs counter-intuitive to how we view most finite business resources like time and money.

. . . successful entrepreneurs like Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Seth Godin, treat creativity as sacred. They often view creativity as their strongest competitive advantage, and taking the time to actively nurture the creative process, gets priority in their daily routines.

These are great and lots of fun to try. The creativity awakening suggestions from the blog post above are as fast and helpful as claimed. Great fun!

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About CricketDiane –

I’ve been creating nearly every day since I was a kid and that is over 50 years. I’ve created in numerous ways in a range that moves from art to problem-solving to inventing, creating music, sculpting and painting to writing and doing various computer / online based projects.

“It is better to make the effort to move forward and release the flow of ideas to work with them and do things creatively, create things and invent and write and make – I definitely know that by experience.” – cricketdiane, 2018